I am personally a bit on the fence about the Madeline Peyroux CD. I think that it suffers from the compression obsession in today's recording industry, which is too bad as it has some excellent covers of great music. And her voice is brilliant. Let us know how it sounds on your Salks.

Speaking of cover albums, I must confess, one of my favorites to demo with my old JBL's was Papa Doo Run Run/California Project. They out Beachboy the Beach Boys. Incredibly slick and powerful, (on Telarc) and perfect for blasting in the big room with those old big boy JBL's. Unfortunately it was stolen from my truck along with a 12 disc changer and hasn't been replaced.......hmmm aa .......$$

One of my favorite test recordings is Loggins and Messina's "Mother Lode". Though there are a couple songs on the album that I don't care for, there are 4-5 songs that are very good for testing out speakers. "Be Free" and "Move On" are great. The CD has a nice mix of music and a high WAF, if your wife isn't into audio.

I am personally a bit on the fence about the Madeline Peyroux CD. I think that it suffers from the compression obsession in today's recording industry, which is too bad as it has some excellent covers of great music. And her voice is brilliant. Let us know how it sounds on your Salks.

Yes the Madeline Peyroux does not sound as open and unrestrained as I wish it were..

Alex

I checked her out on Amazon and noticed it, even when listening to the clips on my BOSE desktop speakers.

This is quite intersting. First, fishinbob, I do not think streaming MP3 files is the way to asset the sound quality.But anyway, can anyone describe for me what exactly a compressed sound is? Maybe I just do not hear it or something else. While I agree that Careless love is not as well recordered as the tracks from Salk's demo CD, I find it quite open. Her voice has some limitations, Jennifer Warnes has a stronger voice, for example, but to my great disappointment, recommended "Hunter" is a pop music for me, and I just cannot force myself to listen to it, even if it is an exellent record. Back to Peyroux, the sound stage is large, the instruments sound natural and "in room" ... I am confused. Maybe , it is tube magic of my preamp?

"Dynamic range compression, also called DRC (often seen in DVD and car CD player settings) or simply compression, is a process that reduces the dynamic range of an audio signal. Compression is used during sound recording, live sound reinforcement, and broadcasting to control the level of audio."

"In simple terms, a compressor is an automatic volume control. Loud sounds over a certain threshold are reduced in level while quiet sounds remain untreated (this is known as downward compression, while the less common upward compression involves making sounds below the threshold louder while the louder passages remain unchanged). In this way it reduces the dynamic range of an audio signal. This may be done for aesthetic reasons, to deal with technical limitations of audio equipment, or to improve audibility of audio in noisy environments.

In a noisy environment, background noise can overpower quiet sounds (such as listening to a car stereo while driving). A comfortable listening level for loud sounds makes the quiet sounds inaudible below the noise; a comfortable listening level for quiet sounds makes the loud sounds too loud. Compression is used in order to make both the soft and loud parts of a sound more tolerable at the same volume setting."

I am personally a bit on the fence about the Madeline Peyroux CD. I think that it suffers from the compression obsession in today's recording industry, which is too bad as it has some excellent covers of great music. And her voice is brilliant. Let us know how it sounds on your Salks.

Some recordings (the really great ones) sound very open, clear, easy to understand the words, the atrist voice is clear and distinct...its not hard to listen to the artist, you dont have to strain to hear the words etc...

Even artists with strong vocal capability are sometime mic'd or mixed into the background, for whatever reason...

Sometimes is lack of dynamic range. but not always..

When the singer is magically sitting there in between the speakers and the illusion makes you really smile...and is so clear it obvious. regardless of the artist...or material.

Add the quality of the sound, uncolored as best possibl by great drivers..its magic...

Recently I have been on a Joni Mitchell kick, watching some old DVD 's from 1980 with Dolby 5.1 that sound like crap but are still very awesome to me...not even close to demo material or really good recordings, but its what we have from back then...

I dont know if its the sound equipment back then or the mixing or just a combination of all the old stuff or methods used back then...great material and artist but ho-hum sound and I really like Joni Mitchell.

I guess the compression adjective to me and others means we are trying to say its not all there, because maybe someone has reduced the overall dynamic range in the recording or mixing process???

These recordings soun dull, less sharp and lacking the zip and zing..

See I told you this would be not-technical stab at this!!

All I know is when its done right YOU KNOW IT immediately!!

As many of the recordings everyone has shared in this post....so far very few 'duds'.

Some recordings (the really great ones) sound very open, clear, easy to understand the words, the atrist voice is clear and distinct...its not hard to listen to the artist, you dont have to strain to hear the words etc...

Even artists with strong vocal capability are sometime mic'd or mixed into the background, for whatever reason...

Sometimes is lack of dynamic range. but not always..

When the singer is magically sitting there in between the speakers and the illusion makes you really smile...and is so clear it obvious. regardless of the artist...or material.

Add the quality of the sound, uncolored as best possibl by great drivers..its magic...

Recently I have been on a Joni Mitchell kick, watching some old DVD 's from 1980 with Dolby 5.1 that sound like crap but are still very awesome to me...not even close to demo material or really good recordings, but its what we have from back then...

I dont know if its the sound equipment back then or the mixing or just a combination of all the old stuff or methods used back then...great material and artist but ho-hum sound and I really like Joni Mitchell.

I guess the compression adjective to me and others means we are trying to say its not all there, because maybe someone has reduced the overall dynamic range in the recording or mixing process???

These recordings soun dull, less sharp and lacking the zip and zing..

See I told you this would be not-technical stab at this!!

All I know is when its done right YOU KNOW IT immediately!!

As many of the recordings everyone has shared in this post....so far very few 'duds'.

All the bestAlex

In staying with the layman's perspective... Visualize a black/white photo vs. the same photo in bright, full color.

The loudest passages becoming less loud speaks to compression and or reduction in the overall dynamic range....when done on both ends of the frequency spectrum this is pretty dramatic....

Sometimes the recording engineer trying to accentuate something may reduce or increase a range of frequencies for whatever reason...all this results in a compression of what could have been ....

The real test is how it sounds when you play it at home on your system to most...

Way back in the beginning I wanted the least amount of 'stuff' in my system. I did not want a myraid of cables and preamps, amps, equalizers, etc...

It was simple, a really nice CD deck (Denon 3300) hooked with some silver Litz cables directly to a large amp, hooked to some fine speakers with some really fine cables ( or should I say really big in girth )....

I had no preamp, no tape deck, no phono, no FM, no DSP or Lexicon stuff....just the shortest path between the CD to the speakers...

Maybe this is why I like small tight groups, artists etc...because you can really hear them, really clear and really up front and personal...with well recorded, material.

Anyhow... its a good discussion and anything that you think that really 'shines' on your SongTowers or other speakers is what we are looking for...regardless of materal....up to a point

Maybe this is why I like small tight groups, artists etc...because you can really hear them, really clear and really up front and personal...with well recorded, material.

Keb' Mo' - "Suitcase" aa

I never heard Keb' Mo' so I just downloaded "Suitcase" on Itunes to check him out. I know... we're just talking about the whole compression thing with digital music and all, but I'm not the most patient guy.... but kudos to Bob here. This is some good stuff. I'll have to purchase some other Keb' Mo' cd's. Thanks Bob... great recommendation!

Out of those 63 songs, I think there's three of four I don't like. All sound good (very good) from a quality standpoint.Quite a few of the songs have some nice, tactful bass to them. Very clean, "snappy, thumpy" bass. aa

Out of those 63 songs, I think there's three of four I don't like. All sound good (very good) from a quality standpoint.Quite a few of the songs have some nice, tactful bass to them. Very clean, "snappy, thumpy" bass. aa

How's your wallet Alex? Ready for some more yet?

Bob

+1

I was listening to the self titled "Keb Mo" the other night and his rendition of Robert Johnson's "Come on in my kitchen" is awesome track on many levels. This would be a great album to start a Keb Mo (Kevin More) collection with.